"We're still here trying to get the word out that 330 farmers are quitting every week"
About this Quote
“330 farmers are quitting every week” is calibrated for impact. Not “struggling,” not “selling,” not even “going bankrupt” - “quitting,” the language of burnout and surrender. Nelson frames this as a choice made under pressure, which points the blame away from individual failure and toward the system: debt, consolidation, volatile prices, predatory lending, and policy that rewards scale over survival. The weekly cadence is key; it turns rural collapse into a metronome, an ongoing loss you can count like chart positions. It’s a statistic built to travel, to be repeated on radio and in interviews, because that’s his medium.
Context matters: Nelson has spent decades tying celebrity to farm advocacy (Farm Aid, benefit concerts, lobbying), using the credibility of an American icon to insist that “family farm” isn’t nostalgia, it’s infrastructure. The subtext is impatience: if the number is this stark and we still have to “get the word out,” the crisis isn’t just economic. It’s cultural - a country that romanticizes farmers while letting them disappear.
Quote Details
| Topic | Quitting Job |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Nelson, Willie. (2026, January 16). We're still here trying to get the word out that 330 farmers are quitting every week. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/were-still-here-trying-to-get-the-word-out-that-94329/
Chicago Style
Nelson, Willie. "We're still here trying to get the word out that 330 farmers are quitting every week." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/were-still-here-trying-to-get-the-word-out-that-94329/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"We're still here trying to get the word out that 330 farmers are quitting every week." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/were-still-here-trying-to-get-the-word-out-that-94329/. Accessed 17 Feb. 2026.



